1274 Belgium Cuisine

Chris talks with Adelina about some of the best foods from his country of Belgium.

Ade: Now Chris, in our last conversation you told me you come from Belgium. And I would like to know, what kind of food do you eat in Belgium?

Chris: What kind of food, well we eat all kinds of food. I mean there’s no restrictions or anything. We have our fish, our meat, our wines, our fruits, our veggies, we eat all kinds of food.

Ade: Yeah, I know. But I mean what is popular about Belgium food?

Chris: Well if you talk about gastronomy, it’s a bit different in Belgium as I think it is in Spain. I mean in Belgium we really enjoy the tables. We don’t go out for dinner that often but when we go out we stay on a table for four hours. I mean it starts with little entrants, then it’s maybe a soup, then it’s the main dish, then it’s still an ice-cream or something. I mean it takes long so we really enjoy [0:01:00.4] and it goes slow. For example, at Christmas, for Christmas we meet at maybe 5:30/6 o’clock and then we start already with aperitifs and it goes all night long, I think we eat from 6 o’clock in the afternoon till 12 o’clock at night.

Ade: Wow! So you must be fat people there in Belgium if you eat that much.

Chris: Well that’s why I just said, we don’t do it that often, but if we do it we really enjoy it and then of course next day or next few days you see people just don’t eat anything.

Ade: So according to you what is the most popular thing in Belgium regarding to food?

Chris: Well it maybe doesn’t give us a good name but I have to say chocolate. I mean Belgian chocolate is the most famous thing we have. You see chocolate everywhere, whatever occasion we have for celebration, there’s chocolate. With Christmas we make these figures out of chocolate, Easter in the same, all these Eastern figures out of chocolate, waffles with chocolate. Everything with chocolate. You should just visit one of our cities and I think every 10 shops is a chocolate shop.

Ade: Wow! So that means you are very sweet people.

Chris: I hope so.

Ade: So chocolate, that’s it, something else?

Chris: Well, chocolate is the most famous one, but of course we have more. Not all that tasty because what’s also really famous are these Brussel Sprouts, but they’re not really my favourite. But something else that’s really famous in Belgium is these places where you have all kinds of fried things It’s actually like a McDonalds or a Burger King, but we have these little places where … I mean a lot of people go there, they have their hamburger, they have their fries, some really … it’s difficult to explain because it’s actually something only Belgium, where you get your meat, but it’s actually competition with McDonalds. A lot of Belgians have tried because it’s had so big success in Belgium that they tried and opened one of these things in Spain for example, but they always failed. I don’t know why. It must be really something Belgian, these fried places.

Ade: Wow! It seems that you really don’t have a healthy diet, eat there in Belgium.

Chris: Yeah. Well it really much looks like it but of course that’s not our everyday dish.

Ade: Gracias Chris.

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